Ice Planet Barbarians

This first portion of the novel is largely concerned with setting the scene of the novel and providing the premise of the narrative, an essential feature of sci-fi world building. The long first chapter explains how Georgie and the other human woman have come to be on Not-Hoth and is full of informative detail to create the novel’s imagined world.

This introduction also includes numerous acts of violence, including abduction, rape, physical assault, crash landing, starvation, and false imprisonment, combining to create a brutal and shocking opening effect. This violence will act as a counterpoint in the novel, contextualizing the choices the women will face as they seek to survive, adapt to a new planet and lifestyle, and interact with the sa-khui. In Part 6, for example, the women choose to stay with the sa-khui on Not-Hoth instead of taking their chances with their returning captors. The brutal opening encourages readers to look favorably upon Not-Hoth, despite its extreme climate. Not-Hoth may be perpetually facing snowstorms and be populated by large, frightening, vicious animals, but it is clearly a preferable environment to that of the opening scenes. This framework begins the novel’s narrative trajectory that will make life on Not-Hoth seem like a viable “happily ever after” (the primary genre rule of romance novels), even if this is initially a narrow preference. At this point, the trajectory’s low point, the women’s attitude to Not-Hoth is that it is not as bad as where they were before. These elements are key to the theme of Consent and Autonomy in Strange New Worlds, as the women are learning to navigate circumstances in which their choices may be limited. The novel specifically addresses consent in a sexual context through the juxtaposition of the “basketball heads” and Vektal. Although Vektal acts when Georgie is unconscious and without her consent, the focus on Georgie’s pleasure—and Vektal’s immediate willingness to stop when she does not consent—illustrates the novel’s focus on how intent informs the affective response to nonconsensual interactions. The novel here also considers the complex nature of consent in the human world: As Vektal acts out of his biological-cultural experience that “resonance mates” always desire one another, the novel frames his assumption of consent as an innocent expression of his alienness.

The women’s naming of the planet is part of the novel’s theme of Using Genre Understanding as Context, as the name “Not-Hoth” comes from the planet Hoth in the Star Wars franchise, the wintry climate and barren landscape of which is a cultural touchpoint for the women who have landed on the mysterious planet. This nomenclature introduces the way Georgie uses fiction reference points to orient her experiences.

The first part of the novel establishes Georgie’s role as a leader, one that she takes on at the other women’s urging due to her natural talent for making plans and acting with bravery even in difficult circumstances. Thus, these chapters cement Georgie as the novel’s protagonist. Even before she meets Vektal, Georgie becomes his analogue among the women; if Vektal is chief among the sa-khui, Georgie is likewise a chief for the human women. This reifies the novel’s notion that the khui chooses correctly even before Vektal resonates for Georgie and long before Georgie experiences the same resonance in return. The novel makes use of the “fated mate” romance trope, as Vektal and Georgie occupy similar roles among their people and experience a similar sense of responsibility toward those people. Moreover, the semi-mystical nature of the khui that “chooses” shows that compatibility is a matter of destiny rather than choice on Not-Hoth. This sets up the sa-khui’s belief that the khui always chooses correctly, even when the female characters doubt the pairings. The novel’s khui is a device that mimics the sense of fate in traditional romance narratives.